Services

R&D and New Technologies Consultation

Not sure where to begin? Our cross-functional team is ready to answer questions, provide guidance, and offer strategies to address your informatics and technology challenges.  Specifically, we can provide consultation support for new or existing technology, R&D guidance, health informatics, prototyping, or enterprise architecture.  If we don’t know the answer, we often know of a subject matter expert (SME) who does – and we’ll help make the connection.

Rapid Prototype Development

We actively collaborate with programs on the rapid design and prototyping of new software solutions (web, mobile, etc.) that leverage current or next generation technologies to overcome roadblocks and improve program efficiency and effectiveness.

Human Centered Design and UI/UX Consultation

Specifically, this service provides consultation support to understand user needs and pain points, as well as provide support on visual design, user interfaces, or software mock-up creation. (e.g., we focus on problem definition, user research, ideation, etc.).  Ultimately, our team’s goal is to provide every user with a very valuable, enjoyable, and intuitive software experience.

Design support entails focusing on how the end user perceives a product or resource (eg., image, website, mobile application).  Our UI/UX services include: consultation on existing resources, and the visual design and mock-up of new resources (e.g., new design elements, low and high fidelity digital mockups – both non-functional and functional).

From an HCD perspective, we have learned (over the years), that before starting any project, there is significant value in spending time “upfront” to better understand potential software users.  We all want to build solutions that are useful and needed. You may “think” you know what your users need, but it is always better to not rely on assumptions – ask! For example, as part of this unique service, we’ll guide CDC programs to identify users, and then our team will observe and/or interview 5-9 of them to identify their pain points, understand how things are currently working, and help you refine your goal. Often, user research activity can take approximately 6-8 weeks to complete. 

R&D Off-Network Private Cloud

Specifically, this unique service provides a resource for CDC staff and partners to be able to rapidly request secure, flexible, off-network computing resources for R&D, testing, and evaluation purposes. The R&D computing resources (on-premises cloud-based virtual desktops and servers) are designed to be “ready-to-go” and are accessible from anywhere with an internet connection. CDC programs and their partners can use this off-network project space to perform alternatives analysis, user acceptance testing, baseline configuration development, and to estimate what hardware and software resources are needed.

Research and Evaluation

As part of this service, our team performs continuous internal technology R&D surveillance and testing.  Examples include, Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Augmented Reality, Virtual Reality, Mixed Reality, Web 3 technologies, 5G networking, Internet of Things/Sensor technologies, and Quantum Computing.  In addition to guidance and recommendations, Analysis of Alternatives (AoA) can be performed.